The Rotary Club of Kirkland held an in-person meeting on May 6, 2024, at Madison House in Kirkland. President Gary Cohn called the meeting to order at 6:25 p.m.
Members attending were: Bob Auslander*, Cody Baker, Rich Bergdahl*, Michelle Cazeau, Gary Cohn, Sue Cohn, Donald Dicks, Sandy Ekins (Honorary)*, Rashmi Garimella, Margie Glenn*, Kate Koslosky, Kristin Olson, Rick Ostrander, Peter Peaquin, Daniel Sada Caraveo, Patti Smith*, John Storbeck, and Rick Walter. *Attended via Zoom.
John Storbeck and Michelle Cazeau served as greeters for the evening.
Kristin Olson led us in the pledge of allegiance, and President Gary led the reading of the Rotary Four-Way Test.
Guests:
The club’s guests for this evening were Rotary Student of the Month for April Raahina Ali and parents, Kader Beevi Ali and Sheik Syed Ali, and brother Gadi Ali; Rotary Student of the Month for May Rachel Chu and her mother, Rotarian Tiffany Lo of the Rotary Club of Elegant (D3482); Shelby Kremenich, community liaison for U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene’s office; our speaker, Dr. Wen Chen, and her host in Kirkland Pearl Chen.
Rotary Minute:
Rick Walter offered a Rotary minute.
New Rotarian Induction:
Membership chair Rick Walter took the lectern and conducted an induction ceremony to bring Cody Baker and Sue Cohn into the membership. Each was presented a certificate of membership, Rotary pins, a Rotary challenge coin, a copy of Rotary Basics, a reference guide for members, and a few other fun items. Rick noted that Cody is the club’s first corporate (primary) member. Sue is the club’s first spouse/partner member, and is past member of this club (during her tenure as principal of Juanita High School). Rotarians stood and welcomed the new members with a round of applause.
Announcements:
The next club meeting is a virtual meeting and will be on May 13. The speaker will be the second in our international service series this year. The next in-person club meeting is May 20, and is the Outstandig Educator Awards event. It will include remarks from Rep. Suzan DelBene.
President Gary asked who will attend the District Celebration on June 24 (it is a bye week for the club, and is located in Bellevue). Several Rotarians expressed interest, and asked questions, and President Gary promised to run another article on the subject in The Spokesman. Earlier versions included and this one will include the link to register. If enough members wish to attend, then the club can arrange a table and bill members.
Dues invoices for 2024-2025 will be out June 1, and will be due June 30. Rotary International does not forgive errors in membership reporting, so anyone who has not paid can not stay on the club rolls after midnight on June 30.
President Gary noted he has been asked by a couple of Rotarians about surveying the club members regarding meeting night and frequency, and asked how many would like us to do so again. The unanimous response was not to survey again (at this time).
President Gary alerted members that a new ClubRunner platform is to be launched soon, and he’s been taking classes to prepare for it. He also noted that the ClubRunner app (for phones) is much improved and provides a great deal more functionality than the previous editions.
Happy Bucks:
Due to the delay in the start of the dinner service, there was not a round of Happy Bucks this evening.
Students of the Month:
April Rotary Student of the Month Raahina Ali is a senior at Lake Washington High School. She described many of her experiences leading up to the Rotary application, her school work, her plans to work in the technology field (in which she is already very accomplished), and she introduced her parents, mother Kader Beevi Ali and father Sheik Syed Ali, and her brother, Gadi Ali, who is a sophomore at Lake Washington High School. She also credited her interest in Rotary to her grandfather, who has been very involved in Rotary and Rotary leadership in India. Mrs. Ali stood and described her experiences in RYLA and as a graduate of Rotary leadership training.
May Rotary Student of the Month Rachel Chu introduced her mother, Tiffany Lo, who is a member of an overseas Rotary club, and described her school experiences and leadership accomplishments, and then discussed her plans for college and career. Rachel also fielded questions from Rotarians.
Program:
Our speaker was Dr. Wen Chen of Caltech, who spoke on human rights abuses in China. Dr. Chen was born in China at the end of the Great Cultural Revolution. Being victims of the horrific atrocity that killed two million intellectuals and destroyed traditional Chinese culture, Wen's parents had mixed feelings about her education. Despite their discouragement, Wen eventually won a national prize at a science competition when she was 16. She was accepted into a top university for undergraduate study. In 1994, Wen came to the U.S. for graduate school and received a doctorate in Biology at the California Institute of Technology in 2000.
Dr. Chen has been working for Caltech since 2000 as a biologist and information scientist on genomics and biological research. Part of her everyday work is to speak at scientific conferences and seminars in universities like U.C. San Diego and Harvard Medical School. She is an active member of the Amnesty International Chapter at Pasadena, a board member for Caltech Women in Biology and Biological Engineering, and a special event host for the Caltech Alumni Association.
Dr. Chen described the story of followers of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, and how Chinese authorities arrested millions of citizens for their spiritual beliefs or political views. Dr. Chen described how the Chinese police, legal, and military system collaborated to perform the state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting. She provided statistics about prisoners of conscience being tortured, forced into slave labor, and killed for their organs. She displayed charts depicting how long it takes --several years-- in the U.S. to wait for matching organs, and data indicating most Chinese hospitals promise to find donors within weeks.
Rotarians also heard about the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration into the U.S., the collaboration of major U.S. technology businesses that work with the Chinese government to provide technology that the government uses to track down and prosecute citizens, how the human rights movement in China has grown recently, and how an innovation that allows people to bypass China's Internet blockade is contributing to the trend of Chinese citizens quitting the Chinese Communist Party.
In response to questions, Dr. Chen shared that her aged parents will not be allowed to come to the U.S., and that her brother has disappeared, which is likely due to her speaking out in America.
President Gary thanked greeters John Storbeck and Michelle Cazeau; membership chair Rick Walter for his membership growth leadership, Rotary minutes, and general meeting support: Daniel Sada Caraveo for the best technology support we’ve had in years; Rashmi Garimella for working on re-establishing the Benevity Causes link for the Google match process, which has led to access to Microsoft volunteers and volunteer matching funds from the company; Jocelyn Ellison for her youth service committee leadership, as evidenced by the students of the month and scholarship program (interviews this coming Saturday); and the five members who joined by Zoom tonight.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:35 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted
Gary Cohn
Acting, Acting Scribe for Acting Scribe Dave Aubry